


My Whole Life Too

by 30PacketsofKetchup



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Elvis Presley - Freeform, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-08
Updated: 2018-01-08
Packaged: 2019-03-02 08:11:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13314075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/30PacketsofKetchup/pseuds/30PacketsofKetchup
Summary: Just two old fools in love





	My Whole Life Too

Edward shuffled through the house in his stocking feet, eyelids weighted with lingering sleep. He had a thick duvet wrapped around his shoulders, nearly dragging on the hardwood floor behind him. It was a gelid winter night, and the wind outside whisked the falling snow in spirals before letting it land on the ground. It was starting to really pile up. Ed watched with disinterest through the kitchen window as he filled a glass with water from the tap. He had woken up because of the chill in the house, woken up alone beside an empty pillow that had not yet been touched.

It was far from a rare occurrence for Jonathan to stay up all hours of the night working down in his lab. Edward was used to it. Hell, he did it too sometimes, when he got wrapped up in writing riddles or crafting his puzzle traps. Sometimes it was merely a good book that kept him up. There were plenty of nights when one of them would be waking up as the other was just getting to bed. Most times there was a mutual acceptance of this incongruence, a respect for their partners’ lives outside of each other. Tonight, however, Edward couldn’t help but feel a bit miffed. Tonight he was cold and in need of what little warmth his partner’s thin body could offer. 

Blanket draped over his shoulders and glass of water in hand, he pressed his ear against the door to the basement. Usually he could discern the sound of beakers clinking or the soft whir of lab machinery, but now there was nothing. He opened the basement door a crack, peeking down. The lights were all off. Where was Jonathan then?

Edward padded down the hall quietly, thinking maybe Jonathan had snuck right past him on his own way to bed. It was just like him to creep around silently in the dark. It was one of his numerous unsettling talents. As Edward walked back towards the bedroom, he heard something. Music. Played very low, coming from Edward’s office. He turned the corner and found that the door was half open, a warm light spilling out across the floor. What was Jonathan doing in his office? 

Well, the Master of Fear wasn’t the only one who was good at creeping. 

Silent as he could, Edward slinked down the hall, listening intently. As he got closer he recognized the music. It was Elvis Presley, crooning gently from the old record player that Edward had been forbidden from throwing away. He had tried to tell Jonathan, multiple times, that with the internet there was no need for one to keep physical copies of music anymore, let alone a vinyl collection, but the man insisted. Jonathan was not as old as some people seemed to think, but he was a stickler for the classics. In truth, Edward didn’t mind much. He had an affinity for the old fashioned himself; it was why he had elected to adopt his unnatural transatlantic accent and why he wore three piece suits nearly every day. Though clutter was clutter and he had much better uses in mind for the table that the record player occupied- but Jonathan was not usually a sentimental man by any means and very rarely asked for anything. How could Edward deny him this simple request?

As he crept closer, he could hear a second voice, deep and croaky and softer than that of the King, singing along. “Wise men say, only fools rush in…”   
Edward clasped his hand over his own mouth, smothering a cry of surprise. Jonathan was singing! Edward loved his partner’s voice- the mad terror it instilled in others, the arousal it spurred in Edward, the careful way he chose his words when he spoke. Deliberate, with purpose, like everything he did. But Edward had never heard him sing. The occasional nursery rhyme, sure, but not real singing. It was surprisingly nice. 

“But I can’t help falling in love with you…”

Edward closed his eyes, leaning against the wall beside the open door, hidden from Jonathan’s view. The song was beautiful, one his favorites in fact, but it was the words pouring sweetly from his partner’s mouth that made the tears well up in his eyes. Jonathan had never said he loved Edward, not out loud or outright anyway. Edward told him “I love you” every day. And though in the beginning of their relationship he had been bothered by Jonathan’s refusal to return the spoken phrase, livid even at times, he had soon recognized that something in Jonathan did not allow him to speak it. Edward had enough respect for his partner that he didn’t push the issue… often. 

“Shall I stay?   
Would it be a sin  
If I can’t help falling in love with you?”

His feet carried him then, through the doorway and to Jonathan’s side. He was sitting at the heavy mahogany desk, a scientific journal hanging precariously from his hands, clearly forgotten as the song had taken over his thoughts. The compact space heater was running on the floor beside his feet. That must be why he was reading in here and not downstairs; the basement could get awfully cold in winter. Edward placed the glass of water on the desk beside him. Jonathan had stopped singing, his ears tinged with just a touch of pink, when he felt Edward’s presence in the room. 

“Edward,” he greeted in what must have been an attempt at a measured tone, as he turned in his chair to face him.

Without a word, Edward took the duvet that was still wrapped around his own shoulders and gathered Jonathan up in it with him. He laid his forehead against his lover’s, and took a deep breath. It was his turn now to sing. 

“Like a river flows surely to the sea  
Darling so it goes  
Some things are meant to be”

Jonathan wrapped his long, lean arms around Edward’s waist, hiding his face in his neck. He was embarrassed, which normally Edward would have reveled in because it was rare and usually the result of some ridiculous thing Edward had done for the very purpose of embarrassing him. But not now. Right now he had no desire to see his partner bashful. All Edward wanted Jonathan to feel in this moment was his adoration. He pulled Jonathan up out of his seat, sliding a hand up to the ball of his shoulder and lacing his other with the man’s hand. 

“Take my hand, take my whole life too”

Edward was singing directly into Jonathan’s ear, as he guided him across the floor in a lazy waltz. 

“For I can't help falling in love with you”

The words caught in Edward’s throat, and he cleared it softly, before laying a delicate kiss against Jonathan’s brow. When he pulled back, he found that Jonathan was looking at him now, his storm cloud eyes piercing as ever, and he could see his thin lips mouthing the words as Edward sang them. His heart welling near painfully in his breast, Edward sang louder now.

“Like a river flows surely to the sea  
Darling so it goes  
Some things are meant to be”

They danced, movements slow and languid, gaze fixed upon each other. And for those brief moments it was like nothing existed but the two of them. No experiments. No puzzles. No Batman to foil their plans. No obsessions to speak of but those that they held for the other. It was just Edward Nygma and Jonathan Crane, waltzing in the warm lamplight, too old fools madly in love. 

Jonathan began to sing aloud again, more of a warble now than a croon, and their voices intertwined much as their bodies had. 

“Take my hand, take my whole life too”

The tears that Edward had been fighting back for the last two minutes began to tumble down now, wetting his cheeks, his bottom lip quivering as he sang along with the tall, strange, brilliant man in his arms.   
Jonathan did not cry, but his eyes were twinkling in the low light, no doubt amused and touched by the display of emotion on his partner’s face. He often told Edward how fascinated he was with his willingness to express his feelings. Edward didn’t tell him that that freedom was really a lack of self-control. Something he wrestled with always.

“For I can’t help falling in love with you”

Jonathan’s nose brushed against Edward’s, his tears rubbing off now on the other’s skin. He nearly sobbed at the touch. 

“For I can’t help falling in love with you”

The last line was whispered against Edward’s lips, and then Jonathan kissed him. The unadulterated emotion in that one kiss was blinding, filled seemingly with every unspoken word of love and passion that the man had never allowed himself to voice. Edward nearly swooned. Jonathan hugged him so tightly to his chest that Edward felt close to breaking. And he basked in that feeling of near-brokenness. 

The record stopped. 

Jonathan cupped Edward’s cheek in his large hand, and used the pad of his thumb to wipe away the tears that lingered there. “It’s cold,” he said after a long silence, pulling the blanket more tightly around their shoulders. 

“We’re supposed to get over two feet tonight,” Edward replied, eyes traveling to the window which was collecting snow now on its sill. 

Jonathan huffed a little. “I had so much to do in town tomorrow.”

“Looks like we won’t be going anywhere.”

“Well,” Jonathan said, regaining his usual sarcasm. “I suppose there are worse people I could have gotten snowed in with.” 

Edward laughed. “I guess we’re just going to have to tolerate each other then.”

Jonathan gave his hand a light squeeze. “Let’s go to bed then. If you don’t get your eight hours you’ll be cranky and I’d rather tunnel my way to freedom than be trapped here with an ornery Riddler all day.” 

“Me? Ornery? Never.”

This time Jonathan laughed.

“Hey Jonathan?”

“Yes, Edward?” he sighed.

“I love you.”

“You too,” Jonathan said, and pressed a quick kiss to the top of Edward’s hair. 

It was close enough.


End file.
